I put the Shan in Shantasia

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One of the hardest things about learning Shuang Jie Gun is remembering the steps to the routines I am taught. The Chinese names mean nothing to me, and as I progress to harder routines (including using double Shuang Jie Gun*) I am left with this one, giant, twirling, jumbled, blurry and highly dangerous mess.

Until yesterday, when my Shifu came up with DoubleShuang Jie Gun for Stupid Shannon.

“This step, like fishing,” he said as he threw them out like he was casting a line.

“This step, like hitting bee,” he said as he waved the nunchuks around his head.

“This step, like haircut,” he said as he brought them back down, dangerously close to his head.

“This step, like beautiful dance,” he said as he twirled them around his waist and back again.

“This step, like killing mouse,” he said as he swept them downwards at the side of his body.

He handed me the Shuang Jie Gun, and with one set in each hand, I took a deep breath and…

“Yes, good, like fishing!” He said.

“Ok, now hit bee! … Yes, now haircut! … Yes, now DANCE!… Good, now kill the mouse!… Ok, that mouse, he got away… now cross!”

And just like that, I had remembered the routine.

“Feichang hen hao!” Yelled Shifu. “Congraulations,” he beamed.

We high-fived, I did my little victory dance and then he said,

“Right, 20 more times, faster, do your best, and then we do it again.”

* What I’m about to tell you confirms that I am crazy, and so too is my shifu for thinking I am competent enough to do this. double Shuang Jie Gun is one set of nunchuks in each hand, which effectively means double the chance of me knocking myself unconcious. This has not yet happened, but I suspect it will at some point.

Kai and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary on Sunday. Nothing says “Happy anniversary, I love you so much” more than Shaolin Monks! Which is why I organised a trip to Dengfeng (near Zhengzhou) to visit the Shaolin Temple.

It involved us leaving very early Saturday morning on a five-hour train trip, driving two hours to the temple and then a further two hours to the hotel (don’t ask) but it was totally worth it because there were all these cool people doing Gong Fu!